


The Adder

by AlwaysDoe



Category: The Blacklist (US TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Elizabeth is still stupid but becomes less so, Eventual Lizzington, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fix-It, Humor, Other, Slow Build, Slow Burn, found family of sorts, my OC is a smartass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-19 03:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29744520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlwaysDoe/pseuds/AlwaysDoe
Summary: Set in S8.Elizabeth is on the run after her attempted murder with the hospital bomb, and Red is forced to call on one of his closest yet most unpredictable assets for help.Of course, a wild adventure ensues, as they always tend to do.
Relationships: Elizabeth Keen & Raymond Reddington, Elizabeth Keen/Original Female Character(s), Elizabeth Keen/Raymond Reddington, Raymond Reddington/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meetmeatthecoda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meetmeatthecoda/gifts).



Chapter I.

“It’s time to call on The Adder.”  
Dembe Zuma looks up, into the fedora-shaded face of Raymond Reddington and rises slowly to his feet until he is no longer looking up at him, but down. The wind whistles between them, the sharp chill of early February nipping Raymond’s nose and ear tips pink as they stand exposed in the park.  
Raymond has just finished his little bird-watching date with Anne—for three hours Dembe has been sitting on this uncomfortable bench a few yards away from the couple, slowly draining the coffee from his thermos and listening to their muted conversation punctuated by soft laughter. He sincerely hopes Raymond does not let himself get attached to this woman, and it pains him not to be able to bring himself to tell Raymond so. Theirs is no life for a significant other, especially not an innocent.  
“Are you sure?” he presses quietly. “You know that once we call on her it may be very difficult to get her to detach from the situation, being what it is.”  
Red purses his lips, those gray-blue-green eyes sliding restlessly behind his amber sunglasses. Considering the risk. “Elizabeth has left me no choice.” His voice is rough.  
Dembe dips his head in acquiescence and walks with the older man back to the car. He may be a friend and confidant, but in the end he is always reminded that he can do nothing to sway Raymond once he’s made a decision. It is like fighting the sea.  
As Dembe is pulling away from the curb, Raymond makes a call.  
“I’m putting you in play. We will be there in under half an hour.” He snaps the cell shut without waiting for an answer and turns his head to stare moodily out the window.  
Twenty-four minutes later, Red and Dembe pull to the curb of a plain brick apartment complex and head inside, heads tilted down, braced against the wind. Two floors up, Red stops before a door halfway down the hall, removes his gloves and raps a pattern onto the wood with his knuckles.  
There is silence inside. Red is lifting his hand to try again when the latch clicks and the door swings open.  
Red grins, immediately making the fluid transition into jovial friendliness. “Cal—there you are! I didn’t even hear you in there; I thought you might be sleeping.”  
The young woman—Cal—tilts her head. “Not if I know you’re coming. Come on in.” She steps aside to allow the two men entrance, closing and locking the door—Red turns to watch her flip the knob, secure the latch and toe the sliding floor block back into place.  
“You’ve added some security measures since I was here last,” he notes. “No issues, I hope?”  
“Oh, not at all,” she assures him. “Just being cautious. So,” she asks, stepping a pace closer and leaning casually on a rather bedraggled-looking armchair, “what do you need?”  
Red rolls his tongue, gazing around the apartment in favor of answering her question. The lighting is clearly that of a young person (an eclectic mix of LED strip lights and white Christmas bulb strands), none of the furniture matches and there is a TV on the chipped coffee table against the far wall with a PS4 gaming system on the floor beside it. The air smells powerfully of something masculine and woodsy.  
“What is that smell?” Red asks, his face wrinkled somewhere between bewilderment and distaste.  
“Mahogany Teakwood room spray,” replies Cal, not bothering to call him out on his avoidance of her question. She’s quite used to this by now. “From Bath and Body Works. I like it, I thought you might appreciate it too. Sorry if it’s too strong.”  
“Yes—it might be quite nice if it weren’t so overpowering,” Red says. “You know, that reminds me of this lovely candle maker I met in Venice—“  
“Red!” Cal barks.  
“Yes?” he replies, all too innocently.  
“Are you really here to tell stories? Because from the tone of your voice when you called me, it sounded a little more urgent than that.”  
Red looks almost disappointed. Sweeping his fedora from his head, he steps over to the small round dining table with its two wooden chairs and sets it down before settling in himself. He twitches his coat around himself and sighs.  
“In all honesty, I can’t say I’m quite sure why I’m here,” he admits. “But my instinct told me to call on you, and I trust my instincts. So here I am.”  
Cal stares at him for a long moment, dark eyes searching behind her rimless glasses. “I heard about your little war with Elizabeth Keen. You want me to get rid of her? Because I will, and I’d do it for free, too, because knowing what she’s done to you, I hate her as much as you do—“  
“I don’t hate Elizabeth,” Red interjects strongly.  
Cal sneers. “Are you sure about that?”  
Red huffs, more of an empty scoff. “She may not be making it easy to like her at the moment, but I don’t hate her. I...I cannot hate her,” he finishes softly, almost sadly. “And whatever directive I give you,” he adds sharply, looking up at his young asset, “you will not harm her.”  
Cal moves to lean against the back of the couch facing him where he sits at the table, restlessness clear in every line of her body. She folds her slender arms, looks at him disapprovingly. “All of us know damn well that if she was anyone else, she would have been dead years ago,” she growls. “For God’s sake, you killed Kaplan, your own scene cleaner and second-best friend besides Dembe, over this woman. Why is she so important to you?”  
Red’s eyes go cold and dark, and the energy shift in the space in palpable. “Your job is not to ask questions. Your job is to do my bidding.”  
And in a situation where anyone else would have gone pale, maybe swallowed nervously and agreed, Cal rolls her eyes and barks a derisive laugh. “What are you, a fucking mafia boss? Don’t give me that bullshit. I’ll ask questions if and when I want to—doesn’t mean you’ll answer them, I know that, but I’ll still ask all the same.”  
And just like that, the Concierge of Crime laughs too. This is part of why he likes her—the fearless irreverence. Much like Glen, but not half as lewd or annoying. He shakes his head before settling back into seriousness.  
“Elizabeth is precious to me,” he tells Cal. “That’s all you need to know. Does that satisfy?”  
Cal’s face is stony. “Personally I think you chose the worst possible person to elevate to such a position in your life, but that’s just my opinion,” she says snidely.  
Red sighs, skates his palm over the back of his shaved head and softly admits, “You may be right.”  
All three of them soak in thick silence for a few long moments.  
Finally, Cal shatters it. “So, I heard that you’re at odds with Liz, but I never really got the details. Fill me in.”  
Red chews the inside of his cheek and straightens up, sliding his hands up his woolen trouser-clad thighs. “I killed someone Elizabeth...had become attached to. In response, she stole forty million dollars from me, bought a private jet, hired a PI to try to dig into my past and tried to blow me up in the hospital with a bomb she created with material stolen from FBI evidence. At the moment, she’s on the lam with her daughter Agnes.”  
He studies Cal, watching the swift build of rage as she digests these offenses committed against her employer.  
“And what have you done?” The young woman’s voice is tight with anger.  
“Nothing,” Red says truthfully.  
Cal’s head whips around, her eyes molten. “Nothing?!” She pushes off the couch, stalking over to smack a hand onto the table and lean into Red’s space. “This is war, Red. Hell, Liz has already launched her first wave of assaults against, and you’ve done nothing but sit on your hands and let yourself get walked all over. This is YOUR kingdom, Red; it’s time to take it back.”  
Red sits; absorbs her words and mulls over the events of the last few months in silence. Eyes flicking; mental cogs whirring. Finally:  
“If I give the go-ahead, you will not harm her.”  
Cal meets his gaze. “Of course not.” An edge of bitterness tinges her tone. Were it up to her, Elizabeth Keen would have died days ago and been disposed of in the most irreverent manner possible. Only fitting for someone who had repeatedly insulted and injured Reddington.  
Across from her, Red flexes his jaw, then sets it, resolution solidifying in his eyes.  
“Do it.”  
A slow, triumphant smile slides across Cal’s features. The Adder has been unleashed.


	2. Checkmate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liz gets what’s coming to her.
> 
> A/N: hopefully I can figure out the indentation issue; I tried editing Ch. 1 but it didn’t do anything. :/  
> Anyways, please read, review and leave Kudos if you enjoy it! Thank you!

Liz emerges into the cold, overcast London afternoon with a bleak scowl, clutching her new Burberry trench coat around herself. She made this trip specifically to try to convince one of Reddington’s assets to abandon him and come to her side, to no avail. Her PI had claimed the guy was looking for an out—but apparently Reddington just gave him a significant pay bump and the man is no longer unsure about his loyalties. Dammit.  
Liz almost smacks into the side of the car and blinks, her bewilderment quickly morphing to irritation. Where is the chauffeur? If that idiot fell asleep waiting for her...! Growling under her breath, Liz clips around the hood of the car and slows, then stops, her jet-lagged mind taking a second to process the scene. Her eyes widen, and she scurries the rest of the way to the driver’s side, reaching in through the open window and pressing her fingers against the man’s jugular pulse point.  
It’s cold and still; he’s dead, slumped back in the seat with a drying trail of foamy saliva down his chin and neck, eyes open and sightless. Following the dribble of spit down his neck, Liz sees something and wisely pulls on a glove before reaching down to pull it out and examine it. It’s a tiny silver dart—no fletching or feathers attached, just what looks like a needle. It’s so small and thin it would’ve been easy to miss if she wasn’t trained to observe.  
There’s something in his lap, too; Liz retrieves it. A card of plain white stationary stock, with a single word written in bright red ink:  
“Checkmate.”  
From the pub across the street, The Adder watches Elizabeth Keen reach for her cell phone, and does the same. 

Later that evening, Elizabeth goes to dinner with her PI at a ritzy London restaurant. The name is something French; not important. Their discussion is mostly one-sided, from the increasingly frustrated Elizabeth—the PI hasn’t found anything, no surprises there. She tells him in hushed tones about the killing of her chauffeur and the threatening note, undoubtedly from Reddington. The PI promises he’ll find out who the assassin is, and The Adder almost chokes with laughter; the poor idiot is so earnest. After their meal (steak for him, salad for her), the server takes Elizabeth’s black card with a gracious word of thanks and heads back to the kitchen.  
“Ah, thank you so much, Eddie,” Cal gushes happily, taking the proffered card from him and inserting it into a reader attached to a small tablet. “This will only take a moment, I promise.” With a few taps of her fingers the PIN number verification is easily bypassed and Liz’s account is at her mercy.  
TRANSFER FUNDS? the screen asks.  
“Yes, please,” Cal smirks, entering the number Red gave her for an offshore account of his.  
PLEASE ENTER THE AMOUNT YOU WISH TO TRANSFER.  
Cal’s fingers fly. Forty, followed by six zeroes. She presses the “Complete transfer” button and waits with baited breath.  
TRANSFER COMPLETE—THANK YOU, says the screen with its big green check mark.  
“No, thank YOU,” Cal chuckles wickedly, pulling Liz’s card from the reader and handing it back to Eddie. “Tell the lady her card’s been declined, will you?” 

An hour later, Elizabeth Keen is absolutely fuming. She gave her card to the server after dinner and while they were waiting her PI excused himself to the bathroom—and never came back. Five minutes later, the server returned and, in a sheepishly apologetic tone, informed her that her card had been declined. The situation had escalated to Elizabeth demanding to see the manager, who had come out and backed up the server, telling her there was nothing they could do. Having no other cards on her, Elizabeth had dug a one-hundred dollar bill from her wallet and slapped it down before stalking out of the restaurant.  
It is raining, frigid and dark outside...and neither her car NOR the new chauffeur she hired just hours earlier are anywhere in sight.  
Cal cackles at Elizabeth’s stunned expression in the rear view mirror from where she sits warm, dry and comfortable in the back seat as they drive away, already lost to sight in the busy city traffic. “Hey, turn up the heat, would you please?”  
Dembe glares at her from the driver’s seat. “Last I checked, Raymond is my boss, not you.”  
From where he’s sitting beside Cal, Red gives a long suffering sigh. “Humor her, Dembe.” Then, to Cal, “So, you got my money back?”  
“Every cent,” Cal replies proudly. “A piece of cake, thanks to Tadashi and the card reader your new tech guy gave me.”  
Red smiles. “Excellent. Where to next?”  
“I think a stop by the airport should wrap it up nicely,” Cal decides confidently.  
“You’re very thorough,” says Red, the passing streetlights bathing his face in shifting shades of amber and shadow.  
“You wouldn’t hire me if I wasn’t. You got her PI, right?”  
“Dembe nabbed him in the bathroom,” Red says. “He’s taking a nap in the trunk, all trussed up like a turkey. Quite cute, actually.”  
Cal nods, her appetite for vengeance curbed but not sated; not yet. “After we’re done at the airport, take me to Liz’s place.”  
Red stares steadily at her. “Remember—no harm.”  
“No harm,” repeats Cal.  
She hopes she can restrain herself; she really does.


	3. Ultimatum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nighttime visitors aren’t always pleasant.

When Elizabeth finally gets back to her temporarily rented London flat, she is cold and wet and angry and confused. She needs a drink, she needs to think, to regroup. She stumbles into the chilly, dark space, fumbles to lock the door behind her.   
“Hello, Ms. Keen.”   
Elizabeth whirls, hand instinctively reaching to her hip for a holster, but there is none anymore. Damn. She needs to get another gun—one that’s not government issued.   
Someone is seated on the loveseat, right foot casually propped on the left knee, arms resting in the lap. A young woman. Her face is mostly hidden in shadow, aside from a single sliver of moonlight illuminating a stripe of features—a sharp jaw, small nose, curved lips, wavy dark hair chopped into a bob, and bold brows set low over eyes that are likely brown but resemble black pools in the darkness. She is serious, silent, still and cold.  
“Who are you?” Liz demands.  
The girl meets her gaze coolly. “A player on Red’s board. Sometimes known as The Adder.”   
“I’ve never seen you before,” Liz says warily.  
This is met with a dry laugh. “You’ve never seen ninety-five percent of Red’s assets. Like many others, I stay out of sight until I’m called forward. But if and when I am called in, it’s only because the situation has gotten dire. Red prefers to use any and every other method of communication and negotiation before utilizing me.”   
Liz stared at her, mind whirling. “You’re an assassin.”   
A beat of silence, then, quietly: “Yes.”   
“You killed my chauffeur...Red sent an assassin after me.” Liz feels anger rising, the familiar dark burn bubbling up.  
A wry smirk crosses the girl’s face, half-bathed in shadow as it is. “No. If he had sent me after you, you would be dead already. He sent me to warn you, and I have. It took all of eight hours for us to repossess what is his and eliminate what was yours. Stay out of his business and let your questions go unanswered. Trust me when I say it will end much better that way.”   
Liz scoffs. This girl can’t be a day over twenty, and yet is sitting here making threats—playing woman. “You’re all of what, 5 foot 3 and a hundred pounds? What are you gonna—“  
Phut.   
Startled, Liz looks down to see a tiny silver needle poking out of the flesh of her bicep—the same type found in her chauffeur’s neck. Looking back up at the girl, Liz sees that she’s suddenly holding a small black blowpipe and wearing a very smug expression.   
The FBI agent opens her mouth to speak, but her tongue suddenly feels leaden, and within a moment she’s crumpling hard to the floor as her arm goes numb and her knees buckle. She watches helplessly through glazed eyes as the   
young woman rises and kneels by her side to murmur softly to her.   
“It has been brought to my attention, Ms. Keen, that you are in desperate need of an attitude check. Let this be it. Reddington has saved your ass and protected you and your daughter more times than either of us can count on both our fingers combined—and you have done nothing but turn around and stab him in the back over, and over, and over again.” She pauses to let this sink in, then continues, “If you ever hurt him again, physically or otherwise, I will kill you.” Her tone is like a honeyed blade—sweet but steely and cold.   
Liz finds her voice again, although whatever she’s been poisoned with is slurring her speech. “You kill me...he kills you.”   
The girl nods, seeming completely accepting and totally unfazed. “And I will die with the satisfaction of knowing you’re not around to hurt him anymore. Not to mention that the last thing I’ll see is his face—can’t get much better than that.” She smiles, tight and mocking, and gives a wink before rising again.   
“The paralytic agent should wear off in about ten minutes,” she says. “Until then, sit tight and think about what I said. When you’re ready to talk, call Red. Tell him you concede.”  
Slumped sideways on the floor, Liz watches her casually stroll out the door.   
No. No, her stubborn, angry heart roars. This is war. Red needs to hurt. She made him hurt but somehow he turned it on her. She still has her PI, and her plane...yes. She can work with that. But tonight, she will rest and launch her new angle of attack tomorrow. She will never concede.  
And so she lays, paralyzed on the cold wooden floor, helpless to do anything but stew in fury.


	4. Concessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liz and Red meet.

The next day, Elizabeth finds out that there is no endgame for her. Her money is gone—ALL of it, not just the forty million she stole. Her credit card has been suspended, her checking and savings accounts closed, the money...somewhere. Probably with Red, the fucking bastard. It would be just like him to hold her own hard-earned money over her head until she agreed to his terms.  
She pays for an Uber with the last bit of cash she has left. Her PI hasn’t picked up the phone yet, but she left a message telling him to meet her at the airport. They’ll talk on the plane, figure out next steps. Hopefully she can wheedle him into helping her even without the promise of payment.  
She is already confidently forming thoughts and plans as she walks to her hangar—  
—and then rounds the corner to see the blackened, smoldering wreck that was once her private jet sitting on the tarmac. And splayed out in front of it are the corpses of her employees—her pilot, bodyguards, even a couple of Red’s old associates she had managed to get on her side...and her PI. Together, their bodies have been arranged to form a word:  
CHECKMATE.  
A grim, macabre reminder of who it is she has gone up against—what he is capable of and perfectly willing to do.  
Hands shaking, Liz dials Nick’s Pizza. His number has since been bumped up to 4 on her speed dial.  
Red answers, devoid of his usual joviality. “Elizabeth. You have something to tell me?”  
Liz is gnawing the inside of her cheek so hard she tastes blood. “We need to talk.”  
“I don’t believe that’s the phrase you were given,” Red replies stonily.  
Liz sighs, aggravated. “I concede,” she growls, and her own admission of defeat stings.  
“A wise decision, I assure you,” Red says breezily, suddenly all cheeriness again.  
“When can we meet?” Liz asks.  
“Right now,” says Red, both in her ear and behind her. Liz sucks in a sharp breath of surprise and turns to see him approaching, snapping his burner shut as Dembe and the assassin girl who threatened her last night emerge from the car and flank him.  
“You,” Liz blurts at her, eyes sliding past Reddington.  
“Ah—it seems that you’ve met Cal,” Red says pleasantly. “Last night, I presume?”  
“Unfortunately,” the girl—Cal—replies evenly, her deep brown eyes still fixed on Liz. In the light of day, she’s even less imposing; short of stature and extremely slender, with broad shoulders over narrow hips and thin limbs.  
Unintimidating and anonymous-looking. This girl is young, college-age; could blend right in with any crowd almost anywhere. But Liz has to admit that there is something unsettling about her. Maybe it’s the simmering darkness behind her eyes, or her posture—somehow simultaneously relaxed and tense, upright but not stiff—or the way her long, delicate fingers flex restlessly while she stares unblinkingly at Liz.  
Somehow, Liz has no problem believing this girl could, and would, happily kill her. She’s seen the same sort of visibly potent, barely leashed anger in Alina Park too.  
“Well, now that pleasantries are out of the way, let’s talk shop,” Red says, interrupting her reverie. “I have terms here, Elizabeth, and I will only agree to a ceasefire if they are all met.”  
“I could say the same,” Liz snips.  
“You have nothing,” Red says flatly. “Not anymore. No assets, no funds, no means of transportation, no bargaining chips, no favors to call in. You are no more a crime lord than I am Jesus reincarnate. No—you will listen to what I have to say and either agree to my terms or never see me again. And before you assume that banishing me is the best option, remember that you are a criminal again, Lizzie. You cannot return to the FBI, and now you have nothing with which to remain on the run. Without me, you are hopeless.”  
And he’s right, damn him. Liz turns away, rakes her hand through the snarl of her windblown hair, tries to think of any other option. Finally, she clears her throat.  
“What are your terms?”  
Red relaxes slightly, and looks absurdly pleased. “Just what Cal told you last night. Allow me to keep my skeletons in my closet. Let us go back to the way we were a year and a half after we met.”  
“You killed my mother,” Liz grates out. “We can never go back to being friends.”  
Red sighs. “All I can tell you is that woman—the woman from Paris—was not your mother. I have never lied to you, Lizzie, and I have no intention of starting now. I have only kept things from you, for your own protection.”  
Another misdirection; another imposter, even more confusion and no more solid answers then she’d had when this whole debacle began. Liz tries to keep the tears from welling but can’t.  
Red sees this and moves in as if to embrace her, pull her close, but Liz flinches and pushes away. “Don’t,” she says harshly. “Just...don’t. Please,” she adds, as if politeness will lessen the sting of rejection.  
Red frowns and his eyes look empty and bereft, but he drops his arms and obediently retreats a few steps. He opens his mouth, but Cal cuts in sharply.  
“Red—we’ve got company.”  
All four of them turn towards the sound of engines as three black sedans round the far end of the hangars and approach.  
“I didn’t call anyone else,” says Red, already with one hand under his coat at the small of his back, ready to pull his gun. “Lizzie?”  
“Me neither.” Liz goes for her hip, again finding it empty with a rush of dismay. “Shit—I don’t have a gun—“  
“There’s one in the car, glovebox—Cal—“  
“On it,” the small girl nods, already dashing for the car and opening both the front and back passenger doors and grabbing two items—a pair of what look like black motorcycle gloves, and a Glock, which she runs back and shoves into Liz’s waiting hand before pulling on the gloves and facing the newcomers, who are now parking their cars and piling out. Immediately it’s obvious these are not friendlies—dressed in the typical mercenary gear and armed to the teeth. By the time the first merc lifts his semiautomatic, they are met with a hail of pistol fire from Red, Liz and Dembe.  
Red begins taking down mercenaries with his usual intense but fluid grace, headshot after headshot. The air stinks of gunsmoke, filled with the usual cacophony of yelling and screams. There is a blur of black in Liz’s peripheral and she spots Cal as the young assassin leaps into action.  
As Liz sensed, there is more to her than meets the eye. She moves with a power, speed and grace that belies thorough training, taking down the first few enemies with chokeholds or swift, powerful snapping kicks to the head or legs, intermittent with some eardrum claps and blade-handed chops to the windpipe that make Liz wince. And then Liz witnesses the secret weapon—Cal slips in close while one of the mercs is distracted trading shots, and punches him in the arm, her small fist bouncing right off; the brawny man is startled for a moment, then glances down at the spot where she hit him and laughs in her face, full of incredulity.  
As he’s laughing, though, his face suddenly flushes and the veins in his forehead and neck begin to stand out; his laughs turn to choking gurgles and Liz watches in numb horror as foamy saliva begins dribbling from his mouth—within seconds he collapses into a twitching heap and then goes still. Liz sees Cal relax her hands, and three small, silver needles protruding from the gaps between her knuckles slide back into her gloves with a snick.  
So that’s what makes her so deadly—why they call her The Adder. Her preferred method is poisoning, be it via long range (the blowpipe she used last night) or melee combat (the poisoned gloves).  
Together, the four of them mow easily through their opponents. And even with the storm of bullets flying back and forth, somehow, Cal manages to make it through without a scratch. After the last man is felled by a brutal shot through the neck by Dembe, they all take a few moments to rest, the sudden silence punctuated by their heavy breathing.  
And then Cal turns towards Liz with aggression plain in the tense squaring of her broad shoulders.  
Liz blanches at the naked fury on her face.  
“I told you,” Cal growls, “that next time you hurt Red I would kill you.”  
Before anyone can react Cal is flying across the blood-splattered tarmac and takes Liz to the ground in a full-bodied tackle, sending the Glock skittering out of her hand and far out of reach. With a feral snarl the assassin flattens the former FBI agent against the cold concrete, straddling her hips and pinning her down with a deceptively strong gloved hand around her throat. Liz feels a rush of fear as Cal cocks back her right, clenching a fist to expose the flashing silver needles; Liz knows that if they pucture her skin she’ll be dead in seconds. She squeezes her eyes shut.  
“No!”  
Red’s voice is hoarse and full of fear; Liz reopens her eyes to see him gripping Cal’s arm. Cal turns her head and they lock eyes, stormy bluish green-gray on dark, furious brown. “No,” he repeats softly.  
“That was a trap—she obviously arranged it!” Cal argues, her fist shaking, just millimeters away from killing Liz. “She tried to kill you again!”  
“They weren’t hers,” Red says.  
“She...she doesn’t deserve you,” Cal whispers. Her voice is almost pleading.  
Red stares for a long moment and then finally replies, “I know.”  
“Clearly you don’t,” Cal snaps irritably.  
“You know I can’t let you.”  
“Can’t or won’t?”  
“Both,” Red replies firmly. “I told you, no harm. Let her go, Cal.”  
Cal sets her jaw defiantly. “Or?”  
Without hesitation Red levels his gun at her temple. There is a tense beat of silence before Cal releases Liz with a disgusted snort and backs away. “Weak,” she spits under her breath, and with the way Red’s jaw twitches Liz can tell he heard her but he makes no comment.  
“That wasn’t me, I swear,” Liz gasps as soon as she sits up. “I wouldn’t set a trap like that.”  
“Why, because you were worried you might get caught in the crossfire?” Cal asks snidely, cleaning blood from her reinforced gloves.  
“That’s enough,” Red barks sternly, and she falls silent. “Dembe, search the bodies, let’s see if we can get some ID and figure out where these guys came from.”  
Liz helps scavenge the bodies, eventually lifting an employee ID off one. “I’ve got something!” she calls, already shifting back into FBI Agent Mode. Red steps over. “Security for Execo Inc.,” she says, handing him the ID. “It’s in Spanish, too, which is interesting.”  
“I only have one associate involved with Execo,” Red says. “Gabriel Basilio, CEO. Headquartered in Bolivia. Well...it’s a good thing my jet is hangared here too, isn’t it?”  
He smiles brightly down at Liz.  
“You may want to call Agnes’ babysitter and tell her your return has been delayed.”


	5. Crash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things go sideways in spectacular fashion.

It’s the second day of their flight to Bolivia, and Liz is seriously considering going skydiving whether she has a parachute or not.  
For the second time in two days, Red settles into his usual seat and Cal barges past Liz to slam herself down opposite him, fixing the older woman with a venomous glare. When Liz looks to Red, he simply sighs and purses his lips. The FBI agent is left sitting with Dembe, who busies himself in a book and doesn’t even make eye contact. He obviously carries some resentment too.   
They ascend through the clouds into Southern Texas airspace. Several hours later, just after the pilot has announced they are over Colombia, Liz reaches her breaking point and gets up, marching over to Red and Cal, both of whom look up—Red expectant, Cal resentful.   
“Listen, we obviously have some air to clear here,” she says, but she never gets to finish that sentence. Cal glances sideways out the round window, and immediately straightens up, her expression falling into worry.   
“What the hell is that?”   
Both Red and Liz turn to look out the window to see a small, bright white-yellow object arcing up out of the clouds several hundred feet away, trailing white smoke and arrowing quickly towards them.   
Liz’s eyes widen in terror. “That’s a rocket—!”  
“BRACE!” bellows Red, and Cal lunges up to yank Liz into the seat next to her.   
There is a deafening explosion, white hot heat and everything goes black. 

When Liz wakes, everything hurts and it’s so very hot. Slowly blinking back into focus, she is greeted by the sight of thick foliage with a clear blue sky beyond. She tries to move and screams as the world sways and dips dangerously.   
“Hold on, Lizzie!” It’s Red, and he sounds far away.   
“...Red?” Liz calls, her voice small and croaky.   
“Yes, sweetheart—listen to me, you’re okay, but you need to stay still! Whatever you do, do not move, do you understand me?”   
Liz’s brain feels fuzzy and she’s confused. “Why?”   
“You’re hanging up in a big tree, sweetheart.”   
What?  
The mental fog clears very abruptly as the memory dawns and realization follows. The missile...plane crash...the sky...the branches. She’s still strapped into her seat, which somehow looks like it came loose from the plane and landed in a tree. A tree which, if her furtive sideways glances and the distance of Red’s voice is any indication, is very tall indeed. Her stomach swoops and knots.  
“Oh my god,” Liz hears herself utter, in a terrified voice that she is immediately ashamed of.   
“Calm down, Lizzie, you’re okay! Just stay still—Cal is coming up to cut you loose from your seat.”   
Cut her loose? The girl would be more likely to shove her out of the tree and claim it was an accident. Loudly Liz tries to dissuade him. “No no, it’s okay, I can—“   
“Calm down,” Cal says, and Liz whips her head sideways to see that Cal is already balancing neatly on a large branch just above and to her left, a blackened hunting knife in hand. She looks bedraggled, hair mussed and damp with sweat and blood is drying around her nostrils, but her gaze is clear and steady. She doesn’t look angry, which is a reassuring thing.   
“Your seat is snagged upside-down on this branch. I’m going to grab you and cut your seatbelt off, then you’re going to have to help me haul you up onto this branch. You weigh a lot more than I do and I don’t have the strength to lift you.”   
“If we weren’t in this situation I might take offense to that weight comment,” Liz tells her, the corner of her mouth quirking up in a weak attempt at humor.   
Cal rolls her eyes but does not comment, instead wrapping her legs around the branch and lowering onto her belly, scooting closer and reaching down. “VERY slowly, take my hand.”   
Breathing deeply to try to quell her trembling, Liz reaches out and wraps her right hand around Cal’s small, wiry right forearm. With her left, Cal moves down to begin sawing at the far edge of Liz’s seatbelt; the movement begins to shake the seat and the branch it’s teetering on. Liz bites down hard on her lip to keep from shrieking in terror, but her grip tightens like a vice on Cal.   
“Ow—damn!” Cal hisses. “Ease up, Keen, I’m not gonna drop you.” A slight smirk and she adds, “Well, at least I’ll try not to.”   
“You’ve got a real funny way of reassuring people,” Liz grits out.   
“The sooner you shut up, the sooner I can focus on cutting this belt off you.”   
“You—oh, nevermind.” The tree shakes again and Liz can’t prevent a tiny whimper from slipping out, her blue eyes wide. Cal stills her movements and seems to wait for Liz to calm down again before continuing.   
“How’s it going up there?” Red’s voice cuts suddenly and loudly through the muggy air and both women startle—Liz gasps as Cal flinches and the knife slips from her sweaty grip; there is a heart-stopping and desperate momentary fumble before she catches it.   
“God FUCKING damn it, Red, DO NOT do that!” Cal bellows angrily, craning to glare down at the Concierge of Crime many feet below them. “I nearly dropped the goddamn knife!”   
“Sorry,” comes Red’s sheepish apology, and Cal returns to sawing at Liz’s seatbelt with an irritated grunt and renewed vigor. Liz screws her eyes shut and hangs on for dear life as the swaying intensifies. She endures a few more long seconds of nauseating bobbing and then a SNAP and jolt accompanied by Cal’s triumphant “Aha! Got it. You’re free. Now—again, REALLY slowly—reach up and grab the branch—if you can get enough momentum, try to sling your whole arm over it so in case the seat falls you won’t be just hanging with your hands.”   
“Oh goody,” Liz snarls.   
“Listen, you got yourself yeeted into a big-ass tree, not me. I’m the one up here trying to help you.”   
With extreme caution, Liz pulls her torso upright into a sitting position and wraps her free arm around the thick branch as Cal delicately scoots back, still holding her. “Good. Now that you’re sitting up, you should be able to let go of me and pull yourself up here. Okay?”   
“O...Okay,” Liz rasps.   
“Look out below, guys, the seat might fall in a second!” Cal yells down to Red (and presumably Dembe). “Okay, Liz, on three, just throw your torso over the branch here and pull yourself up; I’ll grab you too, don’t worry. One—two—three!”  
Liz makes a desperate lunge for the branch above, the comforting solidity of rough bark lodging beneath her armpits as she feels the seat rock and fall away beneath her. It tumbles through the thick foliage with a series of crashes and cracks, hitting the ground with a solid THUD.   
Gasping, Liz strains to sling her leg up onto the branch several times and finally gets it, eventually shifting her whole body on top. “Nicely done!” Cal praises, and Liz has a fleeting thought that for someone who was so pissed and ready to murder her just twenty hours ago, she’s being incredibly kind right now. “I’m gonna go down first—it’s a pretty easy climb, lots of branches to hold onto.”   
“Okay,” Liz whispers, and watches the lithe young woman crawl backwards and down, out of sight.   
Ten minutes later, her shaking feet hit the ground after perhaps one of the most physically harrowing ordeals of her life. She turns to catch her breath and is immediately engulfed by Red; strong arms pulling her into his chest, hand cradling her head, his lips on her sweaty temple. He smells of sweat and smoke and blood and the last lingering hint of his expensive designer cologne.   
“I’m so glad you’re alright,” he murmurs against her hair.   
And Liz, back in his embrace after so very long, can do nothing but melt into it. She cannot consciously admit how much she’s missed it—missed him. She swallows thickly, lets her eyes slide shut for one second of indulgent weakness.   
“Yeah.”


	6. Camp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group finds a campsite and digs in.

“Is everyone okay?” Liz asks, once she’s extricated herself from Red’s hug.  
“We’re all a little banged up, but Dembe got the worst of it,” says Red. He steps aside to reveal his bodyguard seated on a log—Liz gasps as she sees a large chunk of shrapnel protruding from his thigh, the material of his pants stained dark with drying blood.  
“Oh my God!” Liz exclaims. “We need a med kit—do we have one?”  
“I will be fine, Elizabeth,” Dembe reassures her firmly. “I have suffered worse.”  
“I hate to intrude, but we need to move,” Red tells them.  
Cal frowns. “But if we move, we’re less likely to be spotted by rescue; that’s, like, Plane Crash Survival 101.”  
“And if we don’t move, we are definitely gonna be found by the people who shot us down and want us dead!” Liz argues.  
“You don’t even know that there is anybody coming after us!”  
Liz bristles. “Oh, so you’re just gonna believe that a random MANPAD was spontaneously launched at a random plane over a specific part of the jungle of Colombia at a specific time?”  
“The cartel don’t really care who they kill, do they?” Cal retorts.  
“Lizzie’s right,” interrupts Red, and both women fall silent. Liz shoots a smugly triumphant glance at the young assassin, who looks mutinous. Apparently all the kindness of minutes earlier has evaporated.  
Liz looks to Red. “Do you have any enemies out here?”  
“Would you like that list in alphabetical order?” he asks pleasantly. Liz snorts, and he continues, “I don’t know who it was, but I can guarantee they’ll have a mob of armed goons on the way to pick through the wreckage and check for bodies or survivors. We can’t hope to defend ourselves as it stands right now. There’s a hidden weapons cache in all the planes in my personal fleet. If we can find it, we’ll have plenty of guns and ammo to protect ourselves. There should also be a med kit for Dembe. But if we’re going to make it before sundown we need to leave now.”  
“What about Dembe? He can’t walk like that.”  
“I’ll help him,” says Red, already crouching to slip an arm beneath the tall bodyguard and haul him upright. “Lizzie, you take point. We’ll be in the middle for safety, and Cal, bring up the rear. Let’s get a move on.”  
At Red’s instruction, the four head in the direction of the nearest plume of black smoke, presumably where the tail end landed. Liz sweeps the terrain in front with her Glock and keeps her eyes peeled, while Red supports a limping Dembe with his left arm and grips his own pistol in his right, finger just a twitch away from the trigger. Cal maintains a wary eye on the path behind them, her fingers twitching restlessly and body poised for action.  
Somewhat shockingly but pleasantly enough, they don’t encounter any enemies or setbacks. They stop several times to let Red and Dembe rest, Liz and Cal playing sentinel before they set off again. The journey is tense and all but silent.  
They reach the wreck just as the sun dips below the horizon, streaking the sky in pastel lavender, dusky blues and fiery shades of pink, red and orange. Thankfully, whatever enemies shot them down have not reached it yet, but they don’t waste any time waiting around to find out how long it might take. Dembe sits against the hull of the plane as his companions scavenge around. Red finds the lockbox and cracks it open with the code, handing out several weapons to each of them. Grenades and an AK for Dembe, grenades for Cal, who somehow still has her poisoned needle gloves, blowpipe and darts on her, a shotgun and shells for Red (of course), and a M16 for Liz along with her Glock. There are several other items in the box that Liz did not expect but are welcome nonetheless, like a pack of emergency rations and water bottles, several spools of razor wire and some land mines complete with trip wire additions, which Cal goes out to set around.  
“You let the twenty-year-old with anger issues play with land mines?” Liz asks wryly, gazing up at the deepening blue of the sky as night settles in, still muggy but slightly breezier now. The bugs are still gigantic and awful, though; Liz wishes there were a can of Raid in the lockbox, or maybe a flamethrower. There can be no fire, as it would be a beacon to enemies; at least it’s not cold out here.  
Red looks up from where he’s patching Dembe’s wound with supplies from the med kit—watching him pull the shrapnel from his leg was an absolute bitch—and smiles. “She’s twenty-two.”  
Liz scoffs and rolls her eyes.  
“She’s one of the best I know,” Red continues, focusing hard on sewing Dembe’s leg in the dark. “Not just as a fighter, but as a person. Loyal as hell. She’d die before seeing me come to harm, which is more than I could say for most.”  
Liz glances at him from under her lashes. She’s missed this version of Red too—messy, rumpled, dirty, shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow and collar unbuttoned, tie missing, fedora-less, no sunglasses to shade the twinkle of his eyes. Just the man and his stories, his soul, his essence.  
“How do you know her? She’s so young; surely she didn’t come to you asking to become a hired assassin.”  
Red bites his inner cheek. “It’s not my story to tell,” he says. “Not yet. Cal keeps her past private. One day, once she trusts you enough, she’ll tell you herself.” He tightens the knot on the thread and lowers his head to bite it off, then flicks the needle and length of spare thread into the underbrush. “There you go, brother; all done,” he tells Dembe, patting his knee.  
Liz sighs, and her blue eyes are luminous in the starlight. “More secrets and questions that I can’t ask, huh? It seems to be a pattern with you and most everyone you know.”  
“Ours is a secretive business,” replies Red simply, walking over and seating himself next to her. There’s a crusty rivulet of black-looking blood laced down his neck from a small cut on his scalp. Liz frowns.  
“Hey, you’re hurt too.”  
“It’s nothing, Lizzie,” Red rumbles dismissively.  
“It still needs to be cleaned, or it might get infected.” Liz scrambles to the lockbox, taking the first-aid kit out and reopening it, choosing antiseptic wipes and returning to kneel by Red’s side. He hisses softly as she gently dabs at his scalp.  
“Oh come on, you big pussy. It doesn’t hurt,” Liz says teasingly. She cleans the wound itself, then slides her hand down to wipe off the blood trail; the air seems to thicken between them as her fingertips ghost the warm, sweat-damp skin of his neck and she swears she sees his pulse jump in the hollow of his throat. Their eyes meet and hold, and Liz still cannot tell what color his are.  
“I’m just gonna say right now that if we have to resort to cannibalism, we’re eating Red first,” Cal announces, re-emerging from the swallowing darkness beyond the moonlit circle of their crash-site camp. Red and Liz flinch apart immediately, almost guiltily, and Liz quickly moves away to pack the med kit back up.  
“Oh—like hell!” Red protests indignantly.  
“With how well you eat, you’ll be like a slab of kobe beef,” Cal jibes.  
Liz grins wryly. “And here I thought you’d want to kill and eat me first.”  
Cal glances over dismissively with hooded eyes. “Oh, I’ll kill you,” she says coolly, “but I don’t eat trash.”  
Red and Dembe both recoil with an impressed hiss. “Oohoohoo, she got you there!” Red crows, grinning at Liz, who scowls irritably back. Cal looks smugly proud of her smart comeback.  
“Who wants to eat?” Red asks, holding aloft the box of packaged military rations. Everyone looks at him eagerly, but he walks over to Dembe. “Dembe gets first dibs since he’s wounded. Come on, brother, choose something good.”  
Dembe takes a pack, and Red hauls the box over and plunks it down between Liz and Cal. It’s a subtly smart move, Liz realizes, not taking it directly to one of them as to not show favoritism. After the ladies have chosen their meals, Red takes one as well, cracking open a water bottle and tearing into the package with his teeth.  
“You know, these Meals Ready to Eat can be such a blessing or a curse,” says Red, and everyone present settles in, because what else can you do when Red starts storytelling? “I remember something like this, what was it, seventeen years ago now? I was in Zimbabwe looking to close a deal with this nefarious gun runner, but one of his rivals knew I was coming and had set a trap—nails on the road. Blew out our tires, we were miles and miles away from any civilization, and all we had to eat were these damn things. I became a critic of MREs that week, I tell you; and my God, the things it did to my intestinal tract...”  
Liz eats slowly, nibbling on the dense bread and spooning tortellini in acidic red sauce into her mouth, washed down with sips of warm water. She listens to Red jabber on, gesticulating excitedly, but her attention is mostly on Cal. The young woman watches Red intently, and it’s not just to humor him. The genuine care is obvious, the way she nods and smiles, and occasionally throws in bits of banter to exchange. The profiler in Liz observes and locks away these facets of personality for later usage.  
Once the meals have been eaten and water bottles drained, Red passes out emergency blankets from the box. “What, no pillows? What is this, the wilderness?” Cal complains with a cheeky grin.  
“Colombia’s best,” Red replies.  
The four settle down, listening to the rustle of jungle flora and fauna all around. “I swear to God, if I see a tarantula I’m gonna shoot it,” Cal says, her voice muffled under her shiny blanket. “I fucking hate spiders.”  
“I’m sure the tarantula will be much more frightened of you than you will be of it,” Liz pipes up.  
“Oh yeah, and who told you that, the tarantula?”  
“I’m quite sure tarantulas are the least of our problems,” interjected Red, a little edge to his tone. “We need to rest and regroup early tomorrow morning.”  
They all fall silent and sleep gradually overtakes them, the excitement and exhaustion of the day catching up. The jungle noise around them masks the snap and crunch of heavy footsteps growing nearer.  
That is, until the first land mine goes off.


	7. Moonlight Firefight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing more soothing than a midnight jungle shootout.

The detonation of the land mine was akin to the gates flying open at the Kentucky Derby—everyone sprang into action simultaneously. Red and Liz pull their heavy guns, Dembe popping a grenade and flinging it, and Cal instantly vanishes into the shadows like she is one.   
“Lizzie, cover me!” Red roars, scrambling over to Dembe and dragging him behind a solid wall of broken fuselage. A second later, the muzzle of his shotgun pokes out from a broken window and begins firing. “Dembe, can you see Elizabeth? Where is she?”   
Dembe cranes around the ragged edge of the wreckage, eyes flicking around swiftly in the darkness. “I don’t see her—!” A spray of bullets a few inches from his face makes him jerk back to cover, panting. He hefts his AK, smacks the safety off before returning his own volley, rewarded with a scream of pain as his enemy is hit.   
“Well, we’re not the only ones trading shots, and Cal doesn’t use guns. Lizzie may be flanking them from the trees.”   
“Smart girl,” Dembe huffs, grinning up at his boss.   
Red smirks. “Smart girl indeed.” 

Just as Red had predicted, Liz had covered him as he got Dembe to safety before dashing into the shadows. She isn’t usually one for stealth, but Red and Dembe are drawing the most fire from their little Alamo in the plane’s fuselage and she needs to ease it.   
Their enemies have arrived in a squad of all-terrain Jeep-like vehicles with drab jungle camo patterns and are using them as cover for the firefight. Four vehicles, sixteen men—but it looks like three have already been killed and another five wounded, someone who seems to be their medic crouched by one and hastily bandaging him up. Liz has never killed a medic before and knows enough that it is typically considered bad form in official battles, so she takes aim at another one of the men in bulletproof vests.   
The muggy, gun smoke-scented air swishes to her left and Cal flies out in a blur of black, gloved fists drawn back like some comic book superhero. One needled fist plunges into the neck of the medic and the other into the chest of the soldier he is caring for with a sickening wet thud; they choke and gasp as Cal wastes no time, skids around the back of the vehicle and tackles another man from behind.   
Stunned by the young woman’s unhesitating ferocity, Liz freezes for a second, then manages to shake herself and return to firing. She takes two down and then, as they become wise and start aiming at her hiding spot, she is forced to scramble further around the clearing, squeezing off shots as she goes. She keeps an eye on Cal, watching as she sneaks up one one more man who’s distracted trading shots with Dembe, pulls his sidearm from its holster on his hip and shoots him through the back with it. Before anyone can turn their gun on her, she has vanished into the darkness yet again.   
Red’s shotgun bellows, and another man screams and falls heavily as buckshot tears into his gut. There are only four more survivors left in the attack party now, and they all seem to realize this at the same time. Clearly the one-sided slaughter they had expected did not turn out that way. “Vamanos!” one of them yells hoarsely, and leaps into the nearest vehicle; his fellow fighters desperately sprint for it and pile inside—they peel out of the clearing and speed back into the trees from whence they came in a bouncing blur of taillights, followed by a fiery spray of bullets from the defending party.   
Suddenly, just like that, the jungle is quiet and peaceful again.   
Liz heaves for breath, the familiar warm rush of adrenaline ebbing from her system, sweat burning her eyes as she swipes at them. Fast, heavy footsteps approach and Liz almost goes for her gun again out of instinct before Red’s big, fuzzy bald head emerges over the bush she’s kneeling behind. He immediately joins her on the leafy ground, hands flying to her shoulders, patting and rubbing, checking for blood or wounds, his eyes deep and dark with concern. “You okay, Lizzie?”   
“Yeah,” she breathes. “Yeah, all good, thanks. You?”   
“Dembe and I are both fine,” he assures her. “Cal?”   
Somehow he heard the young woman approaching, even though Liz didn’t; maybe her ears are still ringing from the gunfire. Behind him, Cal rolls her shoulders and tugs the Velcro wrist support straps off her gloves to loosen them before sliding them off her dainty hands. “Doing great,” she responds easily. “Always fun to let off a little steam. And we have cars now!” she adds, clearly delighted.   
Liz stares dumbly at her. She just murdered a medic and his patient in cold blood and blew a man’s spine out with his own weapon and she’s smiling about vehicles? The profiler in her head is already labeling Cal a psychopath.   
“Indeed we do,” nods Red, his gaze drifting over the three abandoned Jeeps. He gives one more firm nod and turns away. “Feel free to fool around with them if you’d like, but I’m going back to sleep.”   
“Oh, big mood,” Cal yawns, and trails after him, shoulders sagging and arms swinging loosely. Liz is suddenly reminded that Cal is Gen Z...a psychopathic Gen Z assassin with anger issues; what an absolutely terrifying combination.   
Liz doesn’t sleep for the rest of the night.


	8. Fun in the Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cal finds a river, and shenanigans ensue.

“So...are we digging in here or moving again?” Liz asks the next morning, as they’re all chewing contemplatively on a breakfast of MREs. The other two look at Red, who glances up with his spork hanging out of his mouth. He pulls it out and purses his lips, waving it back and forth slightly.   
“Hmm...we need to scout around. Last night’s failed attack will have bought us some time; the survivors will warn their boss, whoever he is, that we are a force to be reckoned with. My bet is that he’ll regroup his men and try again sometime in the next couple of days. Until then, we need to get a lay of the land and decide whether it would be wiser to stay or go.”   
Cal moodily scrapes the inside of her meal packet, not looking up. “So rescue is off the table?”   
Red laughs and leans forward. “What, you’re not enjoying the free vacation to Colombia? I mean come on, it doesn’t get better than this! All this fresh air, a reprieve from society, surrounded by beautiful landscapes...”  
“Brought on by a plane crash that killed your pilot, having to scale a fifty-foot tree to save Her Highness, getting ambushed by armed goons while I’m trying to sleep—not to mention that it’s eighty degrees with one hundred percent humidity, the mosquitoes are the size of Dembe’s fist and none of us have bathed in two days!”   
Red stares at Cal, then says, “Well, someone’s a sourpuss.”   
“I’ll tell you what’s sour—your body odor,” she fires back. “I rolled up next to you last night and when you stretched this morning the stench woke me up out of a dead sleep.” Beside her, Dembe snorts and covers his mouth, eyes crinkling with mirth. Red looks positively offended.   
“I make cleanliness a foremost habit,” he says primly, “but current situations being what they are, we obviously haven’t been up to snuff on that sort of thing. So, Cal, since you’re so eager to berate me, you can go look for the nearest body of water for us to bathe in—and do make sure it’s clean; leeches and those nasty little skin-burrowing bugs are everywhere out here.”   
Cal looks horrified, and Liz can’t help but smirk. 

Later that afternoon Cal returns to camp and informs them that there’s a river about a mile to the North, not terribly large or fast-running, but piranha-free and relatively clean-looking. The others have spent the time organizing and fortifying the camp, using pieces of wreckage and their new Jeeps for makeshift blockades or cover if it’s needed. It’s hard to tell Dembe’s level of exhaustion, but Red is definitely gassed. He’s long since shed his vest and in the time since Cal left downed two and a half bottles of water. Sweat is streaming down his neck and face, rivulets gleaming in the afternoon sun, his once-pristine white shirt so damp it’s almost transparent. Not that Liz takes any notice of that.   
“No wonder you’re always wearing hats; your scalp is gonna get fried,” comments Cal, cracking open the water bottle Dembe offered her and taking a deep pull.   
“I’m sure I’ll survive. Now,” he says, slinging a towel over his shoulder—apparently he found the toiletries compartment—“lead the way to that river.”   
It’s a twenty-minute hike through thick jungle foliage, but eventually they find themselves on a muddy bank overlooking a small river. Cal collects everyone’s bottles, drops some purification tablets in and fills them up as Dembe sits down to clean and rewrap his leg. Red wastes no time undressing; Liz tries to avert her eyes at the sight of him in nothing but his black silk boxers, but then something catches her attention, furrows her brow.   
His back...the skin is mottled, warped, unnaturally shiny. Are those...?   
The realization hits like a truck and she reels back, suddenly unable to breathe properly.   
Burn scars. The house fire, the night she killed her father. He was there. There’s no other way he could’ve gotten them—not to that degree. Another piece of the puzzle falls into place, and yet another crop of questions replaces the empty space in her mind.   
Dembe coughs and Liz is yanked back into the present moment, and when she refocuses she finds herself staring directly into Red’s eyes. He’s still waist-deep in the water, but turned towards her now, and his face is a mask of intensity.   
He knows that she knows.   
Liz swallows thickly and Red’s eyes flicker slightly; he gives a tiny nod and his mouth twitches. A silent promise. They will talk later.   
Liz looks over to Cal and Dembe, who are now seated together, the young woman helping Dembe wrap gauze around his thigh. Cal gently pats the bodyguard’s knee once the task is finished and rises, looking back towards the river and grinning. Fingers flying to her mouth, she gives a loud wolf whistle.   
“Nice ass, Red!”   
Red looks back over one broad shoulder, playing coy. “It really is, isn’t it?” Mischief sparkles in his eyes.   
Cal nods approvingly, settling her hands on her slim hips. “Mind if I join you?” she asks playfully.   
Red makes a show of looking around, gesturing to the expanse of open water. “This river looks big enough for both of us.”   
Cal strips down, exposing her small, lean body until she wades into the murky water clad in nothing but a sports bra and boxer briefs. Red watches her in bemusement, eyes tracking as she moves closer. “Whoo! Chilly...you’d think with all this heat the water would be a little warmer,” she grumbles.   
“You know what they say,” smirks Red, “going in with your whole body makes it better—!” With that he lunges at Cal, hoisting her into the air before slamming her into the water with a massive splash.  
Cal resurfaces with a gasp, spluttering, wiping water from her eyes. “You asshole!” With a growl she swipes her arm across the surface, dousing Red with a wave. He barks a laugh and shoves his hands towards her, drenching her again.   
From the shore, Liz watches them splash and laugh with an increasing sense of irritation. The breaking point comes when Red picks Cal up again, tosses her over his shoulder and plunges them both into the water together.   
“Whenever you two are done frolicking, we have enemies hunting us and a camp to defend,” she snaps once they come back up, laughing.   
“Come join us, Lizzie!” Red calls. “The water’s fine!”   
“I’ll pass.”   
Cal scoffs. “Alright then, Agent Stinky.”   
Liz stiffens. “What did you just call me?”   
A wicked grin touches Cal’s lips. “Agent Stinky.”   
Liz grinds her teeth and counts backwards from ten. “Don’t call me that.”   
Cal looks far too innocent. “Well, you’re the one who won’t bathe. If the shoe fits...” She trails off and shrugs airily.   
There’s more splashing to Liz’s right; Dembe has peeled off his own outerwear and is rinsing off a yard or two away from Cal and Red. Cal looks pointedly at Liz. “Stinky,” she jeers again.  
Liz’s face heats, her fists curling in on themselves. “I’m gonna kick your skinny little ass if you say that again,” she warns the girl in a low tone.   
Cal gasps, eyes widening, hands flying up in mock surrender. “Oh no—Agent Stinky is gonna arrest me!”   
Liz charges, plowing into the water, clothes and all. Cal dives away, laughing maniacally while the FBI agent fights the current to try to get at her. Panting and snarling wordlessly, Liz searches the swirling water where Cal submerged just moments before. She’s about to pounce when a powerful pair of arms wrap around her torso and drag her under, just for a moment before pulling her up again, gasping, dripping wet and hysterical.   
“What the FUCK?!” Liz screeches, squirming and flailing.   
There’s a low chuckle in her ear—Red. “Not so stinky now, are you?” Liz suddenly becomes almost hyper-aware that he’s wet, nearly naked and pressed flush against her body—her logical mind cannot justify the frisson of arousal that jolts through her.   
“Let me go, Red!” she growls, turning in his arms to glare at him.   
Instead of obeying, he dunks her again.

Later, the four of them lay out under the sun on a large flat rock and dry off, lounging like lizards. Red looks almost feline as he stretches out on his stomach, arms folded under his chin and his exposed skin taking on an attractive golden tan; Liz envies his inability to burn. Cal is similar, her tawny coloring touched a shade or two darker now, a thick streak of natural golden highlight threaded through her bangs. Dembe sits nearby in the shade of an overhanging tree, napping.   
And for a while, in the quiet, lazy jungle heat, Liz can almost forget that they’re in imminent danger.   
As if feeling her gaze, Cal opens one eye. “Hey, Liz.” Her voice is quiet.   
“Hm?” Liz is still sullen from the whole name-calling incident.   
“I know you’re jealous of me and Red. Don’t try to argue—I don’t blame you; I get it. I just wanted to say...it’s not like that. We’re close, yeah, but that man was old before I was born. And while Red is many things, a pedophile is definitely not one of them.”   
Liz feels herself warm with the flush of embarrassment at having been called out on her unspoken jealousy. “I...I’m not—“   
“Didn’t I JUST tell you not to argue?” Cal frowns, irritated. “I know you are. It’s obvious. That doesn’t mean that I like you or think you deserve him—you don’t—or that I won’t absolutely fuck you up if you try anything, because I will and I’ll have fun doing it, but...yeah. I know how you feel.”   
With that said, she folds her arms over her belly and goes back to sleep. Liz is left with her gaze lingering over Red’s slumbering form, his burn scars stretched taut over his back and shoulders, wondering what truth the past holds and what revelations lie in their future.


	9. Guilt Trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Red and Liz finally have that talk.

After a discussion during their hike back, the consensus ended up being to stay at the crash-site camp. The lockbox was far to heavy to carry and they needed everything in it, as well as the fact that Dembe’s leg was still in bad shape. “What about our enemies? They’re gonna come back soon,” says Liz, looking around at her companions. They’ve decided that starting a fire is fine now since their enemies know their location anyway, so Cal is preparing the dinner MREs as Red cleans and oils his Colt .45.   
“We’ll just have to attack first,” Red asserts, loading the last round into the chamber and snapping it back into place. Liz watches him slide the weapon into the well-worn reddish-brown holster at the small of his back, trying valiantly to keep her eyes from drifting down to the swell of his backside.   
“Is that wise? Four of us raiding an entire team?”   
“It will have to be meticulously strategic,” Red admits, “but we’ve done more harebrained things before, haven’t we?”   
Cal reaches for her dinner packet, nestled in the warm ash by the fire. “What are we aiming for, anyway? Just eliminate all our potential threats?”   
Red tears open his own MRE. “If we don’t take out all of them in one go, we need to do enough that it will stall them for a couple more days at least. The Task Force must be looking for us—I’ve been keeping in regular contact with them since the...hospital incident.” He flicks a glance at Liz, who bridles visibly. “They’ll find us soon enough, I’m sure. Until then, Cal, you’ll scout out our enemies’ location—camp or compound, wherever they’re coming from so we can form a plan of attack tailored to the layout.”   
Cal nods, her face intense in the firelight. “I’ll do better than just locating them,” she tells Red. “I’ll give you guys a head start.”   
“As long as you’re safe about it.”   
Cal scoffs—“I’m an assassin, Red; nothing I do for you is safe.”   
She scarfs down her MRE quickly and rises, dusting off her pants, absently patting her needle gloves, which hang from a carabiner off her belt along with a pouch for her blowpipe and darts. “Alright; I’m headed out. If I’m not back by morning...take care of my cat when you get back to the States.” She steps out of the firelight and immediately becomes nearly invisible, dressed as she is in solid black from top to toe. With a rustle of grass she is gone, leaving Red, Liz and Dembe alone.   
“If either of you need me, I will be sleeping,” says Dembe abruptly, getting up slowly and hobbling over to his own sleeping space inside the hull of the plane. Blinking in bewilderment, Liz looks at Red.   
“What’s up with him?”  
Red gazes levelly at her. “He knows we need to talk—he’s giving us room now.”   
Oh. Remembering their shared moment at the river, Liz feels a wash of nerves. “You were in the house fire in Rehoboth,” she says—it’s a statement, not a question.   
Red purses his lips. “Yes.”   
“Did you save me?”   
A long pause; Red’s eyes are dark and deep. “Yes,” he finally replied, very softly. “I got you out of the house—your mother took you to Mr. Kaplan from there.”   
“Why were you in the house? Who are you? My father is Raymond Reddington, and I killed Raymond Reddington that night. Constantin Rostov is not my father. None of this makes sense!” bursts Liz, feeling more irritable by the second again.   
“Always the questions, Lizzie,” huffs Red, peering at her, shaking his head. “You can never stop asking questions, can you, even when you know you won’t get the answer. So desperate for knowledge you’ll believe anyone who comes along and claims they’re related to you.”   
“Only because you barged into my life, wrecked everything I knew and put me on a hook with the bait of knowing about my past!” Liz snarls. “It’s been seven years with no answers—If I can’t get answers from you, I’ll get them elsewhere!” She paused to catch her breath and let her temper ebb. “What is so horrible about your past that you refuse to tell me?” she asked, a note of pleading in her tone. “You claim to care about me, and yet you string me along like this.”   
“Don’t.” Red speaks sharply. “Don’t try to manipulate me with my feelings for you. You’ve crossed a lot of unforgivable lines recently, Lizzie; don’t make this another.”   
The thick jungle air suddenly seems quite thin, and Liz sucks in a breath. “...unforgivable?” Her voice is small.   
Red doesn’t react, doesn’t flinch. “You betrayed me multiple times, stole from and tried to kill me. You were willing to murder hundreds of innocent people just to get at me.” His own voice is cold. “I cannot trust you. That’s partially why I brought Cal into play—she’ll keep you and your haywire behavior in check.”   
Liz bites the inside of her cheek, reaching for a stick to prod the embers. “What do I have to do to earn your trust again?” she asks stiffly.  
“If you’re asking that question, you’re not ready,” Red says. “It’s not a task to be fulfilled, Elizabeth. You owe me, but I don’t want you to repay me just because you think you have to. You have to want to.”   
They sit in lingering silence together, listening to the crackle and pop of the fire, the dancing flames reflected in their eyes. The jungle whispers around them, balmy wind in the trees and unknown creatures sneaking through the shadows. “I hope Agnes doesn’t worry too much,” Liz murmurs at last, half to herself. “I hope she knows I’m okay.”   
A tiny smile touches Red’s lips at the mention of the little girl. “She knows her mother is a strong woman. She’ll be over the moon when you come back.”   
“That’s the hope.” Liz pushes moodily at the fire with her stick, stirring up sparks. “Am I a bad mother?” she asks, and she doesn’t really want to hear the answer.   
Red is silent for so long that she looks up at him. “Well?”  
“That’s not my place to say,” he tells her.   
“It is, though,” she argues.   
“How so?”   
“You’re a parent too. Well—were. I think,” she stammers. “At least that’s what you’ve let on. If you were actually talking about yourself and not the real Reddington—“  
“The only one worthy to judge the quality of your parenting is Agnes’ father and Agnes herself,” Red interrupts.   
Liz blinks, startled by this revelation. “But...as my friend, you can certainly advise me and share your opinion,” she counters, a bit weakly.   
Red scoffs hollowly. “Friends. I can tell you what friends do, Elizabeth...I can also tell you that friends don’t try to blow each other up or steal money from each other.”   
“They also don’t murder each other’s mothers.”   
“I’ve told you before and I will tell you again—that woman was not Katarina,” Red snaps.   
“Why should I believe you?”   
“Because you love me,” sneers Red, and the venom in his tone makes Liz reel back. “Or did you only say that to soothe the angst of my impending death? A death which, at the end of the day, would have been your fault.” He eyes the FBI agent intensely, his jaw working. “I always wonder how you would’ve reacted if that red phone hadn’t rung at the last second, Lizzie,” he muses softly. “Would you have cried? Or would you have just pocketed my money and gone off to Cuba to raise Agnes and try to forget whose funds you were living on? Would you have attended my funeral, or would Dembe have been left to bury me alone?”   
Liz cannot bring herself to speak; hot tears of shame track silently down her cheeks.   
But Red isn’t done yet. He stands, vindictive and commanding, all broad shoulders and deep, growling voice and dark, glittering eyes. Gone is the friendly, jovial Red Liz knows; she’s brought out the dark side of him: the crime lord, the ruthless killer. There are no more long-winded stories peppered with dry laughter and innuendos here—this is barely-concealed fury that has been simmering in his soul for far too long.   
“Why the tears, Lizzie? You weren’t crying when I was strapped to that chair in the execution chamber,” he reminds her coldly. “Are you crying because you’re sorry you nearly killed me—twice now, actually—or because I’m reminding you of the true nature of the person you’ve become? I don’t recognize you anymore, Elizabeth. You are not the woman I turned myself in for. The Elizabeth Keen I knew seven years ago was an intelligent, passionate, driven individual who would have done anything for the greater good of others. You have since devolved into a bitter, naive, selfish woman who would prefer to kill innocents rather than trust the man who has stuck unwaveringly by your side this whole time,” he snarls viciously. The volume and power of his voice rises as he continues relentlessly. “A woman who hands me hollow platitudes of affection just to make both of us feel better because she knows I’m about to die and it’s her fault—“   
“Enough!” cries Liz, and quickly gets up, staggers away from the light and warmth of the fire, shying from the seething form of the man who is verbally flaying her with truth and guilt. “Stop, please—“ She stumbles, palms stinging on contact with cold, hard earth.  
“No, Lizzie.” Red approaches in several swift, powerful strides; grips her arm and hauls her up again, his warm breath puffing into her face, ghosting across her own dry lips. “It’s time for you to stop. Stop poking and prodding and asking and demanding and digging for all these bottomless answers that only unearth more questions. You aren’t some TV show supervillain, Elizabeth. You are a mother and an FBI agent. At the end of the day, those two jobs are all that matter. You need to deflate your head, pull it out of your ass, and refocus on your true priorities here. Do you understand me?”   
He shakes her then, just slightly, with one hand curled around her bicep and the other holding her shoulder. The pressure is enough that Liz knows she’ll have bruises when she wakes tomorrow. Red’s pulse is thumping against the soft flesh of the hollow of his throat; the veins in his forehead stand out in high relief. He is holding himself back—again. For her. Because she is his Lizzie, and no matter what he does, no matter how powerful he is in any sense of the word, he cannot—will not—hurt her.   
Cal’s words echo in Liz’s head: “If you were anyone else, you would’ve been dead years ago.” And it’s the truth.   
“Yes,” whispers Liz. “Yes, I understand.”   
I’m sorry. The words tickle the back of her tongue, but she knows better. She doesn’t mean it—not yet. And she will not mock Red by throwing more meaningless words at him.   
Red seems to gather his wits again in a long inhale, eases his grip and releases her, the tension and anger melting from his body as the darkness ebbs out of his eyes. He nods slowly, steps back several paces—putting distance and safety between them again. They stand and stare at each other, absorbing the weight of the words exchanged, feeling the tension dissipate in the humid smoke-scented air.   
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Lizzie,” says Red at last.   
“Sleep well,” is all she can bring herself to offer in return.   
He laughs, and there is no humor in it. “Not likely.”   
Liz watches him turn and shuffle tiredly into the darkness, and the wave of crippling guilt that follows his retreat brings a fresh rush of tears.


End file.
